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道場で泣き戦場で笑う dōjō de naki senjō de warau Cry in the dojo - Laugh on the battlefield

道場で泣き戦場で笑う (dōjō de naki senjō de warau), weep in the dojo, laugh on the battlefield, is a maxim of training. This wording is in no book the National Diet Library's full-text search reaches, but its family is in print from 1928. This study follows that family through baseball, the police and judo to the English cry in the dojo, laugh on the battlefield.

Japanese Scroll of Cry in the dojo - Laugh on the battlefield (dōjō de naki senjō de warau) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Cry in the dojo - Laugh on the battlefield道場で泣き戦場で笑うdōjō de naki senjō de warau

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

道場で泣き戦場で笑う, weep in the dojo, laugh on the battlefield, is the martial-arts wording of a Japanese maxim of training, and the wording itself has no entry in the dictionaries kotobank carries and is in no book the National Diet Library's full-text search reaches, a search that runs to about 2000. Its family is older: the weeping half, 練習に泣け, in a baseball writer's book of 1928; both halves in 1930, with 喜べ, rejoice, for the second; the couplet with laughter, 練習に泣いて試合に笑へ, from 1934, a club's motto by 1940 and called a proverb, ことわざ, by 1951. The police riot units used 訓練に泣いて実戦に笑え from 1970, judo and kendo 稽古で泣いて試合で笑え from 1972, and men who trained for the war recalled the training-and-combat form in print from 1993. In English it was quoted as the Japanese dictum "cry in practice, laugh in competition" in 1980, and the dojo wording is in English print from 2003, the earliest the Internet Archive's full text reaches.

Overview

The sense. What a dojo says to itself: hard training now for the sake of the real thing later. It is the athlete's rule that the hard work is done in the hall so that the real contest is easy, and men who trained for war remember it as theirs; the Japanese puts it with tears and laughter: the tears spent in training, the laughter kept for the day that counts. It is plain modern Japanese and it quotes no one. Its family is old the way a coach's saying is old: the weeping half about a century in print, the couplet with laughter a little less, and the dojo wording found in print only from 2003, in English. None of it is old the way a samurai saying would be.

The words. 道場, dōjō, is the training hall; 戦場, senjō, the battlefield; 泣き, naki, the continuative of naku, to weep, and 笑う, warau, to laugh, so the phrase is a balanced couplet, weep in the dojo, laugh on the battlefield. The romaji doujou and senjou are keyboard spellings of dōjō and senjō.

The text in English. Word for word it is weep in the dojo, laugh on the battlefield, and weep is closer to 泣く than cry, which in English can also mean to shout. English print carries the maxim first as a sports saying from Japan, cry in practice, laugh in competition (1980), and in the dojo wording from 2003, the earliest the Internet Archive's full text reaches, where it is sometimes called a samurai maxim. Nothing found puts the family before the twentieth century, and the samurai label has nothing under it.

The historical record

The maxim before the dojo. The oldest printed form found is a coach's precept. In 1928 the baseball writer 飛田穂洲 set down a list of rules for a team's spirit in his 『ベースボール』, and one of them reads 練習に泣け。敗れて泣くな。敗戰に泣くものは練習に泣かぬものである, weep in practice; do not weep in defeat; the one who weeps at a defeat is the one who did not weep in practice [1]. It is the weeping half alone. He gave it again in 1935 [2]. A second half had joined by 1930, when a book of model speeches told a team 練習に泣いて試合に喜べ, weep in practice and rejoice in the match [3], and the couplet with laughter, 練習に泣いて試合に笑へ, weep in practice, laugh in the match, is printed in a school magazine in 1934 [4]. In 1938 a privately printed book recalls it shining black on the wall of a room [5]; in 1940 a school's athletics club takes it as its motto [6]; and in 1941 a memorial book for 高木正平, a corporal killed at Nomonhan who had been an athlete, carries a contribution under that title by 久保田昇 of Ritsumeikan University [7]. A baseball boys' magazine calls it a proverb, ことわざ, in 1951 [8], and 練習で泣け試合で笑え is printed in 1952 [9]. By 1956 a school athletics yearbook introduces it with 云われる如く, as the saying goes [10]; in 1960 a book on the relay race calls it the motto of many coaches [11]; in 1961 it was the watchword of the Tōei Flyers under their manager 水原茂 [12]. A student club's slogan of 1941, 負けて泣くより練習で泣け, better to weep in practice than to weep at losing, shows the first half still at work alone [13].

The hall and the field. The saying moved with the institutions that train. The Hiroshima riot police used 訓練に泣いて実戦に笑え, weep in training, laugh in action, in 1970 [14], and the Nagano police magazine prints 訓練で泣き、実戦で笑え as a thing often said from 1971 [15]. In 1972 a judo manual by 岡野功 calls 稽古で泣いて試合で笑え a phrase judo people like to use [16], and a 1987 kendo book calls it a proverb, 諺 [17]. Men who trained in the war recalled it later in the same shape: 訓練に泣いて、実戦で笑へ in a memoir of the navy's flying cadets printed in 1993 [18]; 訓練で泣け、実戦で笑え as what a recruit was taught in the army barracks, in a testimony printed in 1997 [19]; and 訓練に泣いて、戦場で笑うことだ, the nearest wording to the dojo form in any book found, in an army officer's memoir of the 1944 campaign, printed in 1999 [20]. Those are memories, and they date the saying to the war only as far as a memory can; no wartime print of the training-and-battle form was found. A 1939 lecture to transport workers explains a saying the search does not show as 『戰塲で笑つて勝を制するためには準備に苦しめ』といふ意味, it means: to laugh on the battlefield and win, suffer in preparation [21], which is the battlefield sense in prewar print; the saying itself is unread.

The dojo wording. 道場で泣き戦場で笑う itself is in no book the National Diet Library's full-text search reaches, on the modern or the prewar spellings, a search that reaches books printed as late as about 2000 [22]; kotobank has no entry for it or for any of its family [23]; and web searches in 2026 found it on calligraphy sellers' listings and on one English-language dojo blog, and on no Japanese page that uses it. In English the maxim came first as a sports saying: a 1980 study of Olympic gymnasts quotes a coach, We cry in practice, we laugh in competition, and calls it the Japanese dictum [24], and Robert Whiting's book on Japanese baseball lists Cry in Practice, Laugh in the Games among its slogans in 1989 [25]. The dojo wording is in English print from 2003, the earliest the Internet Archive's full text reaches: Cry in the dojo and laugh in the battlefield, marked Aikido, in a school yearbook of 2003 [26]; the same couplet marked Samurai in 2006 [27]; Cry in the dojo and you will be victorious "on the street" in Dave Lowry's The Essence of Budo (2010) [28]; Samurai maxim in 2011 [29].

What is not a source. The 1942 Kagoshima school reader 『讃郷読本』 prints 戰場で笑が出るやうになつたら、もう勝です, once laughter comes on the battlefield, you have already won [30]. It closes the story of Marshal 大山巌's headquarters at the opening of the assault on Mukden in 1905, where the marshal's joke breaks his staff's strain, a story 木村毅 had told in 1939 [31]. It is about laughter under strain, not about training, and is named here so a reader who runs the same search does not take it for a witness. So is a reader's letter to a military paper in 1900 saying the soldier who is serious at drill is the one who laughs in battle [32]: the thought is there and the words are not.

A reading

The dojo couplet is the youngest wording of a Japanese coach's precept, and the precept is a good one: weep where weeping costs nothing, so that you need not weep where it costs everything. What the sources settle is that the rule is Japanese: a baseball writer's weeping half in 1928, the couplet with laughter in a school magazine in 1934, a proverb in sport by 1951 and in a kendo book in 1987, and a Japanese saying when it went into English. What they do not settle is the dojo wording alone. It is in no Japanese book the search reaches, which stops at about 2000, and it is in English print from 2003, so whether the halls said 道場で泣き戦場で笑う before it was brushed, or it came into Japanese from the English, cannot be said from what was read. The phrase is good Japanese and means exactly what it appears to mean; nothing under it supports a samurai or an age older than the twentieth century.

References

  1. 飛田穂洲, 『ベースボール』, 1928, p. 62, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1192514/1/40
  2. 飛田穂洲, 『中等野球読本』, スポーツ良書刊行会, 1935, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1212537/1/179
  3. 大日本雄弁会 編, 『式辞挨拶十分間演説集』, 大日本雄弁会講談社, 1930, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1224238/1/202
  4. 〔岡山県第二岡山中学校校友会〕『校友』 第11号, December 1934 (digitized by the Okayama Prefectural Library), National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12715654/1/100
  5. 原田久之助 編, 『のこるかをり』, 1938, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1102760/1/54
  6. 『陸上競技』 13(6), 一成社, July 1940, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1526215/1/14
  7. 高木繁太郎, 『高木正平伍長 : ノモンハン散華』, 1941, contents: 練習に泣いて試合に笑へ・久保田昇, p. 61, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/3460799
  8. 『野球少年』 5(6), 芳文社, June 1951, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1730255/1/33
  9. 『日本経済新報』, July 1952, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1405477/1/11
  10. 全国高等学校体育連盟陸上競技部 編, 『高校陸上年鑑』 第3号, 講談社, 1956, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12125045/1/36
  11. 美山豊, 『駅伝』, 不昧堂書店, 1960, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2492167/1/44
  12. 『週刊ベースボール』 16(9), 25 February 1961, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/7907973/1/11
  13. 岐阜薬学専門学校報国団 編, 『応援団史』, 1941, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1456570/1/213
  14. 広島県警察機動隊 編, 『ザ・ロンゲスト・デー : 広大封鎖解除機動隊奮戦記』, 日刊労働通信社, 1970, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11969307/1/126
  15. 『旭の友』 25(12), 長野県警察本部警務部教養課, December 1971, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2632333/1/10
  16. 岡野功, 佐藤哲也, 『バイタル柔道』, 日貿出版社, 1972, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12146369/1/96
  17. 佐藤成明, 『剣道・攻めの定石』, スキージャーナル, 1987, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12148575/1/38
  18. 新潟県甲飛防通十六期会・新防会, 『群青の揺藍』, 1993, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13324199/1/18
  19. 平和祈念事業特別基金 編, 『軍人軍属短期在職者が語り継ぐ労苦』 7, 1997, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13215731/1/120
  20. 藤崎武男, 『歴戦一万五〇〇〇キロ : 大陸縦断一号作戦従軍記』, 中央公論新社, 1999, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13917107/1/43
  21. 日本通運株式会社門司支部 編, 『小運送従業員夏季講習録』, 1939, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1024342/1/11
  22. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search, oldest first, on the phrase and its spellings. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=道場で泣き&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
  23. kotobank, search for 道場で泣き戦場で笑う: no entry. https://kotobank.jp/search?q=道場で泣き戦場で笑う
  24. John H. Salmela, Competitive Behaviors of Olympic Gymnasts, Charles C. Thomas, 1980, Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/competitivebehav0000salm
  25. Robert Whiting, You Gotta Have Wa, Macmillan, 1989, Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/yougottahavewa00whit
  26. Shawnigan Lake School 2003 (yearbook), Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/shawniganlake2003shaw
  27. Odyssey 2006 (yearbook), Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/odyssey200626nort
  28. Dave Lowry, The Essence of Budo, Shambhala, 2010, Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/essenceofbudopra0000lowr
  29. Moon Phase Astrology, 2011, Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/moonphaseastrolo00kald
  30. 鹿児島市山下国民学校, 『讃郷読本』, 1942, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1120725/1/54
  31. 木村毅, 『大山・児玉・乃木』, 大日本雄弁会講談社, 1939, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1261507/1/34
  32. 『軍事新報』 158, June 1900, National Diet Library Digital Collections, snippet view. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1888161/1/2

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · grok-4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-06, citations

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 道場で泣き戦場で笑う (dōjō de naki senjō de warau)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/dojo-de-naki-senjo-de-warau.